Talk:Albania

Template:Factbook talk

Article clean-up complete.

I took some time to tweak the mechanics of this article, as well as ensure that the content was properly organized. Though this article still needs a lot of sourced content for some of its existing sections, it is currently on the right track towards improvement. In short, I cleaned up the article as much as possible,and wish the best of luck to anyone who can further improve its content.--Taulant23 (talk) 08:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think your edits to the history section were a good idea. They were not. Everything should be summarised here, and linking to specific articles. BalkanFever 08:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

So please change them on the History of Albania not on the main page.To much fight over it, BalkanFever.Again,thank you Balkan for you help and your time!--Taulant23 (talk) 09:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

What I mean is that it should still be talked about (a little bit) in this article, for people who don't want to read everything about Albanian history, but want an overview. BalkanFever 09:16, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Well the History part did not help when discussing Albania's new politics, new economy and transportation. Things that most people wont to know about the current development of Albania. Not what hapenned 10000 years ago and what Albania used to be part off.--Taulant23 (talk) 15:45, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps an article about the current events in Albania is in order? I think, however, that this article can handle both: history and current events. Beam 15:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Update Map

The map needs to be updated for Kosovo Dotancohen (talk) 16:58, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Albania member of Francophony

somebody ad this information i can not at this point --Andrea stefani (talk) 10:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Please do not do this.....

I don't know who added that "Kris Gjika" next to teh Adriatic sea, but it is not correct or appropriate. If youi cliked on the link it connected to the word "Shit". Whoever did this, please do not change it back. This is serious information and not a venting site ( no matter how much you might hate this country). thanks, eneida

Thank you for fixing this. here is when it was added: [1] John Vandenberg (talk) 06:40, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Bush is the first Presindent (U.S.) to step foot in Albania... ever

It says in the article that George W. Bush is the first sitting U.S. President to visit Albania, and that's true, but he's not just that. He is the only one to ever visit the country, sitting or unsitting, so I was thinking, maybe we can take the word sitting out. I know this isn't such a big deal, and if the person who wrote that doesn't want me to edit it, I won't. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.88.184 (talk) 00:06, 9 April 2008 (UTC) I did change it to the first president.Thank you--Taulant23 (talk) 07:51, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Motto

Ti Shqipëri më jep nder, më jep emrin shqipëtar (You Albania give me honor, you give me the name Albanian.) Is this the motto of Albania? Some say that's npt the motto.Where can I find some sources for this?--Taulant23 (talk) 07:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC) George Bush Senior visited Albania a few years ago when he was not in the office. So that makes G.W.Bush the first sitting US president to visit Albania. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.24.147.160 (talk) 20:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Add for Legue of Prizeren

Greece which had been awarded the Arta region of Epirus , was determined eventually to take Ioannina as well,the center of Albanian culture in Epirus.pg153 The Balcans 1804-1999 Misha Glenny 1999 ISBN 862070504 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.242.30.64 (talk) 10:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Borders

Albania is bordered by republic of Kosovo to the northeast.More than 40 countries recognize Kosovo independence and one of them is Albania. --Thispoems (talk) 18:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm really, honestly not trying to argue the Kosovo question here. (Or, stated another way, I'm trying not to argue the Kosovo question here, in the article about Albania.)

In a passage such as this one, which is only trying to describe the geography around Albania, we should try if possible to simply mention that one of the entities surrounding Albania is Kosovo, but ideally without delving deeply into a discussion over the precise status of Kosovo. Such a discussion, if it belongs anywhere at all, should ideally reside in the Kosovo article and its talk page — and as I said in my earlier edit summary, the Kosovo article currently says that Kosovo is a disputed territory, which is why I felt that mirroring that same phrase here was appropriate as a way to keep the geographical description neutral.

My main concern over saying just "Kosovo" is that we've already seen some people inclined to "correct" this to say "Serbia" — which is almost inevitably going to get "corrected" back, quickly leading to an edit war. Saying "the disputed territory of Kosovo" will hopefully be equally distasteful (!) to partisans on both sides — which, of course, is what you sometimes have to do in the name of impartiality.

If you feel it just isn't right for the Kosovo article to describe Kosovo as a disputed territory, I would propose that the right forum for that discussion would be the talk page for that article. Please note, though, that the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee has put a "probation" notice on the Kosovo article (see the talk page) — which I assume means that there's already been quite a bit of edit-warring going on over there, and anyone new who just jumps in and (for example) replaces "disputed territory" with "sovereign state" in the first sentence of the article is likely to get stomped on quickly and messily by admins. Richwales (talk) 21:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest let’s keep it as Kosovo, because Albania does recognize Kosovo as an independent state(so does the rest of Europe,U.S etc).I hope not to see any edit warring because finally we had some peace around here.

For more info please check this website too [2]--Taulant23 (talk) 03:01, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I personally would have no objection to just saying "Kosovo", because anyone who wants more information about the status of Kosovo can easily click on the wikilink to get to the article about Kosovo.

I'm not the kind of person you'll have to convince, however — largely because I don't have any cultural ties to Kosovo, Serbia, or Albania, and I don't have a strongly held position one way or the other regarding Kosovo's status. The question, I believe, is whether some other person out there who is convinced that Kosovo's claim to independence is illegitimate and wrong — a person who believes that Kosovo is still rightly a part of Serbia as passionately as you believe that Kosovo is entitled to be a sovereign state — whether that sort of person will be content to let this article simply say that Albania's northeastern neighbour is "Kosovo". We've already seen that at least one other editor has insisted on saying Albania is bordered by "Serbia", not by "Kosovo". Will that editor, or others like him/her, be content to let the article say "Kosovo" after all? Only time will tell, I suppose. Richwales (talk) 06:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

And, indeed, just as I feared would happen, it appears that this same other editor went in again just now and changed "Kosovo" back to "Serbia". I would once again suggest that we try to take a middle ground via a formula such as "the disputed territory of Kosovo". That's what the Kosovo article itself currently says about the status of Kosovo — and it seems factually correct to me, since (as has been pointed out) a sizable number of countries have recognized Kosovo's UDI, while another (also sizable) number of countries have declined to do so and apparently still support Serbia's claim to sovereignty. Again, the Albania article (or, at least, an introductory paragraph that is simply trying to describe the geographical location of Albania) is not the place to have a knock-down, drag-out argument over the rightful status of Kosovo; that argument discussion belongs in the Kosovo article itself, and for our purposes here, it seems reasonable to simply acknowledge (in passing) the fact that Kosovo's status remains in dispute and move on to discuss the proper topic of the Albania article — namely, Albania. Richwales (talk) 17:46, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I put a note on the Kosovo talk page just now, alerting people over there to this ongoing dispute. Richwales (talk) 00:52, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I saw it, but it's not a smart move.You will create more edit warring.Let's keep it way from Kosovo's article,they have enough problems there.Let's use "a disputed territory" for now.--Taulant23 (talk) 03:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

With respect, I must disagree. The people working on the Kosovo article should be kept aware of problems regarding mentions of Kosovo in other articles. And the Arbitration Committee (which has put a probation notice on the Kosovo article) should also be made aware of what's going on here, since they're intending to take quick action against abusive edit-warring in "related" articles (a category which I think includes the Albania page now). I'll concede that my earlier text may have been too long, so although I've reinstated a note about our problem here on the Kosovo talk page, I've put a much shorter note there than before. Richwales (talk) 04:27, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

As I said [3] :)--Taulant23 (talk) 23:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

It is not a disputed territory but a partially recognized country. I do not understand the logic behind the "disputed territory" theory. The Kosovo article to which you seem to refer, is also disputed since it is being held hostage by few users. So there is no need to use it as a reference. Jawohl (talk) 13:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

New Pictures

Please add some new pictures. All of the cool pictures wore deleted and replaced with some old crapy pictures. It’s very clear to me why they are doing this.Please help--Taulant23 (talk) 19:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I see you've met the Anti Albanian Tourism Cabal. There are some very nice pics left, actually. Some of Apollonia and Butrint even. Cmon now, ruins aren't "old (and) crappy". Just kidding, I know you love them too much for that. 3rdAlcove (talk) 02:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Macedonian language

The Macedonian language should be added to the names of Albania that are parenthesized at the top of the page. This style is observed with the Montenegro page and should be applied here as well. Estimates for the Macedonian population in Albania range from 10,000 to 120,000-350,000. The sources (used in the ethnic Macedonians wiki page) are here: http://www.albanien.ch/albinfo/pmwiki.php/Main/AlbGeoInfo ; http://www.florina.org/html/2003/2003_osce_albania.html

Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonians_of_Albania

In either case it is a significant amt and as argued in the talk for Montengro, it is the local variant of greatest contrast to the other dominant local form. Gkmx (talk) 15:45, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Macedonian, it is not a national language of Albania PLUS the Macedonians are not the largest minority in Albania. .My advice to you is to change your attitude.--Taulant23 (talk) 19:06, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree that it's not appropriate to include the Macedonian name. The way Wikipedia usually does this sort of thing is to give only the name(s) according to the national language of the country in question. Where a country only has one national language - for instance Spain - the name is given in that language, even if the country has large minorities which use different names for it. If a country has multiple national languages, then the name is given in each of those languages. See Switzerland and Finland for examples of that treatment. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:00, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Whether or not the Macedonians are the largest minority or not is not something that can be determined easily as sources contradict each other. As for it not being a national language, that is true. However, it is a recognised minority language in certain areas of Albania. The sourse for that is in the Macedonian language article. The same type of recognition as "minority language" exists for Greek as well - they would constitute the largest minority population of Albania as determined by the Albanian government sources. Perhaps the Greek variant should be added as well? If you meant to imply that the Albanian govt does not respect linguistic minorities to the extent that the Montenegrin govt does and that Wiki should reflect this, then you are right in removing other local variants of the name as. What "attitude" did you perceive from my prior writing? I am saying that we should honour local variants of "Albania" to the extent we honor local variants of "Montenegro" with more regard towards representing the language usage situation in the region and a bit less regard towards the legal rights offered to regional languages given by an emerging/fledgling democratic govt.

I also object to the use of the word "guys" in the edit summary. It is sexist. Gkmx (talk) 22:07, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Please visit the page for Peru. In the intro it reads, "Spanish: Perú, Quechua: Piruw, Aymara: Piruw". Footnote: "Quechua, Aymara and other indigenous languages are co-official in the areas where they are predominant". Macedonian and Greek, like the indigenous languages of Peru, are not co-official at the national level, but at the regional level - much in the way Greek and Macedonian (et others) are recognised only regionally. There is no effective difference presented in the legal rights of these linguistic minorities in their respective nations. Peru is one example. I am too lazy to find others, but the Finland example does not act as precedent in the case of the Albania article as there is no observable cross-article agreement within Wikipedia on the usage of minority languages. Whether or not there is an official administrative position on the issue of minority language presentation in Wikipedia, I am uncertain. If your position is correct and mine is not, then I suggest you proceed to editing the Peru page to comply to your stance. I would personally be satisfied with seeing just seeing all of the regional languages recognised by the Albanian govt listed in the page's infobox. However, that would still not be justice. Gkmx (talk) 22:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC) This is just wrong.--Thispoems (talk) 16:02, 18 June 2008 (UTC)Why don't we do the same thing to Macedonia then?They have Greek and Albanian minorities[4].--Thispoems (talk) 16:07, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I would have to agree with Thispoems on this one. I don't think the minorities in question are large enough to warrant the inclusion of the country's name in their respective languages. Only languages that are official at the national level warrant such inclusion. As for Peru, well, WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is not really an argument. --Tsourkpk (talk) 00:34, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

What you're suggesting is not unreasonable. However, the (FYROM) Macedonia page already makes note of the regional usage of minority languages (at the bottom of the infobox). Similar info for linguistic minorities in Albania has, until now, been excluded from the article here. What I am attempting to do is achieve a higher degree of standardization across Wiki articles. Based on the consensus reached in Montenegro-related discussion pages, place (country) names are to be presented in the predominant language of the country and the language of the minority group whose name variant is of significant difference from that of the region's predominant language. In the case of the article for Montenegro, the predominant regional language is "Montenegrin/Serbian" and the minority language of significant difference is "Albanian". Croatian and Bosnian are omitted due to their names for MNE being identical to the "Montenegrin/Serbian" form. In the case of Albania, there are two minority groups that represent a significant percent of the national population and their names for Albania should be represented as they are significantly different from the Albanian language version. Do the same with the Macedonia article if you please. However, the issue was already resolved months ago by an arbitration committee. In the case of Macedonia, it was ruled that only the Macedonian language be presented in the intro and that in the infobox it be stated that Albanian is also in wide use in Western Macedonia.

Depending on what figures you go by... Lets give Macedonians the benefit of the doubt and say that they constitute 350,000/3,600,523 - that's 9.7%. As for the Greeks 500,000/3,600,523 - 13.8%. SOurces are taken from Wiki articles and are from figures determined by the minority groups. It is not a negligible quantity in either event and their %population numbers do exceed that of the Albanian minority in MNE.

Here is a piece from the Northern Epirus page: The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization estimates the Greek minority at approximately 70,000 people.[9] Other independent sources estimate that the number of Greeks in the Northern Epirus is 117,000 (about 3.5% of the total population),[10] a figure close to the estimate provided by The World Factbook (2006) (about 3%). But this number was 8% by the same agency a year before.[11][12] In total there were an estimated number of about 400,000 Greeks[[[citation needed]]] in North Epirus in the mid-nineties. To these figures should be added the approximately 200,000 [[[citation needed]]] Greeks from Northern Epirus residing in Greece. The number however are suspect as "many, for economic reasons, claimed the Greek nationality" and Greeks are also trying to count Vlachs as 'Greeks.' [2]

The Greek population is of significance as is the Macedonian one. 117,000 Greeks from independent sources is enough for significance (3.5%).

CheersGkmx (talk) 00:54, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

As for the "other crap exists" statement. It is applicable if the connection between two cases is one where the use of Article A serves as precedent for Article B when the info in Article A, that is used in proving the case, is unstable (e.g. subject to dispute or has been modified repeatedly). This is not the case with the Peru-Albania point as the info in the Peru page is stable.Gkmx (talk) 00:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm tempted to erase the last edit,as WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is a good point for it.Don't back your edits with other wikipedia articles.Amenifus (talk) 06:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The edits are not solely backed by using the Peru example. The data presented is from articles outside of wikipedia, the fact that they are also found in the articles is of know use to your attempt to label my entire argument as subject to WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. If you disagree with the edits please do justify on reasonable grounds why you desire to revert them. Of course, this would be an act of courtesy to a certain degree on your part. Just claiming that its subject to WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is unreasonable for the reasons already written above.99.234.179.83 (talk) 07:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Ooops. forgot to login after deleting cookies and such.Gkmx (talk) 07:33, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I really see no sense of that addition, in this case. It's boring. "Αλβανία"? "Албанија"? It's all the same name anyway. Adds no valuable information. If these minorities had some name for it that was actually substantially different, we might talk about it. I'm against adding names just for the sake of serving as a symbolic badge of recognition. We should be adding them if they are interesting information for our outside readers. Which, in this case, they are not. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

If you are to transliterate the names, then yes, they would be similar/identical to the English version of the country name. However, the respective alphabets of the languages in question predominantly use the non-transliterated form. Removing the transliteration ("Albanija") from the intro will remove redundancy. The alphabets are not quite the same: Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet, Greek alphabet. Really, I would just like to see a cross-article consensus on the issue of country names in the local languages. My personal belief is that Greek and Macedonian is not req'd in the intro (though should be mentioned in the infobox). I also feel that only the predominant language is necessary to be given in the intro paragraph. Unless it is a situation where the nation is truly multilingual - e.g. Switzerland. Its somewhat common sense. So, until the people that are placing "Mali I Zi" next to "Crna Gora" do not agree to remove "Mali i Zi" from the MNE article I will stand by my prior decision.Gkmx (talk) 22:21, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

This thinking in terms of reciprocity is exactly why these kinds of debates are always so silly and take so long. Please don't do that. Support here what you think is best here, on its own merits. You just said yourself "Greek and Macedonian is not req'd in the intro". Then please stand by that and support that solution. Insisting on the opposite of what you really think is best, just because of something that is going on at a different article, is the paradigm case of disrupting Wikipedia to demonstrate a point. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:11, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you(Gmx) are missing a point here.There's a huge difference between an "officially recognised" and an "official" language.Greek and ehnic Macedonian(or Slav-Macedonian,in case someone feels annoyed) are recognised, but not official languages.Otherwise all neighboring countries would have their names spelled in a dozen different ways.Amenifus (talk) 06:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

I think we should go with FYROM,Albania goverment and most of the Albanians I know do not say Republic of Macedonia.What is Republic of Macedonia? Greece,Albania? Slavs?hmm We need to decide if we are using the name The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or Macedonia.--Taulant23 (talk) 23:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure? Most Albanians I know simply say "Macedonia" ;). "Macedonia" is actually the preferred, in theory, name when no possibility of confusion arises, or "Republic of Macedonia" for the first mention with subsequent ones simply as "Macedonia" from what I recall. That being said using RoM for every mention might be preferable in practice for obvious reasons... 3rdAlcove (talk) 15:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Presence of other nations in the territory of present-day Albania

Issue is for the instance pertaining to the Serbian presence in Albania prior to the expansion of the Ottoman Empire to the area of today's Albania. These sources mostly pertain to northern Albania: http://www.montenegro.org/duklja.html http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/duklja/ http://www.rastko.org.yu/bogoslovlje/nikon/simposion/mspremic-zeta_c.html

Also check out these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duklja http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_empire

I don't know if anyone else knows this story - I've been trying to find it online (with no success): There was a Serbian ruler (rank unknown to me) that had two brothers. All three were married. Some kind of sacrifice had to be made in the construction of some form of fortification about Skadar (fort/fortress perhaps?) where one of the wives would have to be entombed alive within the walls of the fortification. The brothers spoke of this among themselves (all knew) and agreed on a way to make the selection of whose wife would die to be random. Two brothers cheated and told their wives how they could save themselves and the other played fair. His wife (from the guy that played fair) was entombed. Then someone came and cursed the parties involved stating (cursing) that Skadar will never be a Serbian city again.

The point of me writing the fragmented version of the story is to pose the question - what structure was it that was built by the ruling Serbians?

"...swept through, leaving their cultural mark as well as their ruins" Lets say that all I provided was a map of the extent to which the Serbian medieval states extended at various times (source link 9). History is a part of culture and that alone is enough to qualify the map as evidence of demonstrating cultural marks. Language is also part of culture visit Balkan Sprachbund and look for the source that was used for the following - "Albanian was influenced by both Latin and Slavic, but it kept many of its original characteristics." It is a logical conclusion that there will be physical changes to the environment of a region by "Nation X" if Nation X is ruling the region. It would not be logical to conclude that Nation X leaves the reason untouched in any way - Regarding contsruction/ruins in the region.

Regardless, these new sources will satisfy your doubts certainly.Gkmx (talk) 02:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, and what about greek and macedonian in the introduction ?-- CD 10:21, 21 June 2008(UTC)

About the castle issue,that's just a legend.Similar fables and such are common among balkanians, see Rozafa Castle.Amenifus (talk) 06:34, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

"Very TRUE,there is not even one structure that was built by the ruling Serbians.Besides horror,death and barbarian massive killings.Serbs did not build any think on Albania.I would never put Greeks and Romans in the same shoes with the Serbs(Slavs).Greeks and Romans at least did build some large cities (with the help of the Albanians),they never destroyed Albania like Servs did.--Thispoems (talk) 16:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Partially recognized

I understand Republic of KV is "partially recognized" but there is absolutely no point in posting this in the intro of Republic of Albania. It should read that it borders Kosova | Kosovo and if the user clicks that name in the Kosova article it will tell them all about the partially recognized part and the dispute between Republic of Kosova and Republic of Serbia. Does anyone have a valid reason to leave the "partially recognized" part in the intro? Ari d'Kosova (talk) 02:59, 23 June 2008 (UTC)